Recycle an Application Pool on Demand (IIS 7)

  • Article

Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista

Occasionally, you may have to immediately recycle an unhealthy worker process instead of waiting for the next configured recycle. Rather than abruptly stopping the worker process, which can cause service interruptions, you can use on-demand recycling. Overlapping recycling, the default, lets an unhealthy worker process become marked for recycling, but continues handling requests that this unhealthy process has already received. It does not accept new requests from HTTP.sys. When all existing requests are handled, the unhealthy worker process shuts down.

Prerequisites

For information about the levels at which you can perform this procedure, and the modules, handlers, and permissions that are required to perform this procedure, see Application Pools Feature Requirements (IIS 7).

Exceptions to Feature Requirements

  • None

To recycle an application pool on demand

You can perform this procedure by using the user interface (UI), by running Appcmd.exe commands in a command-line window, by editing configuration files directly, or by writing WMI scripts.

User Interface

To use the UI

  1. Open IIS Manager. For information about opening IIS Manager, see Open IIS Manager (IIS 7).

  2. In the Connections pane, expand the server node and click Application Pools.

  3. On the Application Pools page, select the application pool you want to recycle immediately.

  4. In the Actions pane, click Recycle and then click Yes.

Command Line

To recycle an application pool, use the following syntax:

**appcmd recycle apppool /apppool.name:**string

The variable string is the name of the application pool that you want to recycle. For example, to recycle an application pool named Marketing, type the following at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:

appcmd recycle apppool /apppool.name:Marketing

For more information about Appcmd.exe, see Appcmd.exe (IIS 7).

Configuration

The procedure in this topic affects the following configuration elements:

<recycling>

For more information about IIS 7 configuration, see IIS 7.0: IIS Settings Schema on MSDN.

WMI

Use the following WMI classes, methods, or properties to perform this procedure:

  • ApplicationPool.Recycle method

For more information about WMI and IIS, see Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) in IIS 7. For more information about the classes, methods, or properties associated with this procedure, see the IIS WMI Provider Reference on the MSDN site.

See Also

Concepts

Configuring Recycling Settings for an Application Pool (IIS 7)
Managing Application Pools in IIS 7